Left Releases House GOP Target List for Amnesty

Breitbart
by Matthew Boyle 9 Jul 2013

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Democrats and activist groups on the left used the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent to publicly circulate a target list of House Republicans whom Democrats plan to pressure to try to get the Senate “Gang of Eight” immigration bill or something close to it passed in the lower chamber of Congress.

“Is immigration reform doomed in the House?” Sargent wrote in a piece on the memo. “Reform advocates and Democrats on the Hill are not ready to give up just yet, and they are quietly circulating a new memo that details a list of House Republicans they believe may — may — be gettable in support of reform.”

The memo, dated July 3, is titled “Immigration Reform in the House – Republican Targets.” The document cites comments Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) made on MSNBC recently about how about 200 Democrats could join 20 or so Republicans and pass the Senate bill through the House. The YouTube video the document links to is on the official page of DRM Capitol Group, a leftwing organization that purports to represent illegal aliens, particularly “undocumented youth,” in Washington so they “are represented in the halls of power and are correctly and directly informed of the actions of Congress, Executive Agencies, and the Courts.”

“If there is a vote on comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship in the House, it will pass with a bipartisan majority,” the target document reads. “If all but a handful of the House Democrats vote yes, and at least 20 Republicans from the list below come along, reform can easily clear the 218 necessary to pass the lower chamber. Looking at the list of 99 House Republicans below, it’s clear that capturing those 20 or so Republican votes is well within reach.”

The unidentified groups who drafted the document then split their Republican targets into various categories: GOP members with “growing numbers of Latino and Asian constituents,” with “agricultural or high-tech interests in their districts,” and lastly “Republicans who understand the need for the Party to tackle immigration reform for its own future.”

Throughout the list of Republicans amnesty advocates are targeting, there are various notes and comments and links to articles and other information. Common comments include whether a Republican voted for the Violence Against Women Act or voted against the “Steve King DACA amendment,” an amendment that defunds President Barack Obama’s efforts to implement amnesty for DREAM Act recipients via executive order and administrative action. Republicans who are considered an “immigration target” of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), an official arm of the Democratic Party, are also on the criteria list.

House Speaker John Boehner has promised that no immigration bill that does not have the support of the majority of House Republicans would be taken to the floor, and the Senate Gang of Eight bill does not have the support of the majority of House Republicans.

Boehner went even further in his promise to conservatives on immigration Monday, vowing that any bill that the House would take up would need to secure the border first then deal with legalization after security is completed. “The House is going to do its own job on developing an immigration bill,” Boehner said on Monday. “But it’s real clear, from everything that I’ve seen and read over the last couple of weeks, that the American people expect that we’ll have strong border security in place before we begin the process of legalizing and fixing our legal immigration system.”

While Boehner’s promises have clearly stated that the House considers the Senate Gang of Eight bill dead on arrival, amnesty advocates are not backing off in their push to try to pass it. Joining them are various forces in the GOP establishment and big business community, and President Barack Obama. According to a report from The Daily Caller’s Neil Munro, Obama is planning to head out on a road trip to campaign for the bill.

House conservatives thus far remain confident that Boehner and the GOP leadership will stand strong on this bill, but under the pressure from special interests and the left, that could change at any time. Nonetheless, according to NBC’s Chuck Todd, “some doubt [is] seeping in” to the White House's immigration plans.

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The list and memo, which you can check out right here, is meant as a very broad, and admittedly optimistic, look at the full range of House Republicans whose support should not be completely ruled out just yet.

The idea here is that if Speaker John Boehner does, in the end, allow a vote on the Senate bill, or something else that does contain a path to citizenship, you would need only a few dozen House Republicans to support it for it to pass, since most House Dems would vote for it. Boehner has publicly ruled that out, but there are some grounds for doubting whether a decision has actually been made. From the memo:

If there is a vote on comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship in the House, it will pass with a bipartisan majority. If all but a handful of the House Democrats vote yes, and at least 20 Republicans from the list below come along, reform can easily clear the 218 necessary to pass the lower chamber. Looking at the list of 99 House Republicans below, it’s clear that capturing those 20 or so Republican votes is well within reach. Our target list includes several different groups of Republicans, such as:
* Republicans with growing numbers of Latino and Asian constituents. While redistrictring has temporarily insulated many House Republicans from the “demographic cliff” their party faces if it caters only to white voters, at least 38 Republican members of Congress represent heavily Latino districts — and approximately 25 GOP memberes are in diverse swing districts where the growing Latino, Asian, and immigrant vote is crucial. These include California Republicans Jeff Denham, David Valadao, Gary Miller, Buck McKeon and Devin Nunes; Colorado Republican Mike Coffman; Florida Republicans Mario Diaz-Balart and Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (both of whom are longtime supporters of immigration reform); New York Republicans Peter King and Michael Grimm; and Nevada Republican Joe Heck.
* Republicans with agricultural or high-tech interests in their districts. Both the agriculture and high-tech sectors urgently need immigration reform to secure a 21st Century workforce. Republicans who should support reform for the economic well being of their districts include Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Spencer Bachus, and Sam Johnson, all of whom represent agriculture-heavy districts, and Darrell Issa, whose district includes tech interests.

The memo goes on to list several leading figures in the House GOP who have already backed immigration reform for the long term good of the party, such as Paul Ryan, Greg Walden, and Raul Labrador. The full list is here.

Again: All of this turns on whether Boehner will end up allowing a vote on a measure that lacks the support of a majority of House Republicans, and the memo is intended mainly as a broad assessment of those who should not be taken off the table completely. But the list offers a glimpse of the pols that bear watching — they will be the targets of pressure from both sides — and of a roadmap to possible, though by no means assured, success.



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